and i dip my pen in blood
by coffee-stained lips
Summary: It's nine months in the making, but they crumble within three. / Quinn&Puck. Oneshot.


He hands her a note at the beginning of summer, when she's fresh from the hospital and finally able to wear sundresses instead of paper gowns. The edges are dog-eared and torn, and the handwriting is barely decipherable even without the smudges from nervous fingertips, but he holds her while she reads it and whispers the one word that stands out in her ear for her –

"_Forever_."

.

It's nine months in the making, but they crumble within three.

She neglects his calls and he stands her up and her mother never liked him much anyway – she feels like they were drawn together only to break apart, a fatal attraction without a happy ending. They never even officially break up (nor did they officially go out), but she figures he can tell as well as she when she passes him one day in the mall parking lot and he's doing something vile in the trunk of his pickup, without a shit to give.

(He does call her though, but the entire conversation's filled with _whatever's_ and _cool's_, but it's anything but cool, whatever.)

.

The first time she's drunk and he's drunk, and Finn's out in the backyard with the rest of the celebrating football team, which makes her feel so dirty, but the only thing running through her mind is _PuckPuckPuck_ and the blood cells in her veins are ablaze with his kisses.

She wants to scream _no_ at him, as his teeth chew on her vulnerable neck, but everything comes out in a whimper of futility, a whisper of passion. (And she doesn't hate it as much as she should, and it's not just the wine.)

When it's all over and done with, and they've both sobered up a little, Quinn cries in his arms and he strokes her hair uneasily – obviously he's not used to crying girls. But his touch has turned to gentle, and he hums melodies in her ear, melodies that are much too sweet to be from his mouth.

"Never again." she chokes out when the tears are all gone and her mask is duct-taped and back on. Puck just stares up at her, with her hands on her hips and her eyes like ice, and wonders why he wanted her so badly. "Find some other broad next time…_Puck_." She gazes into his eyes – they're brown, trustworthy & devious, tender & fierce – waits for his reply.

Quinn literally wants to punch the smirk off when it appears.

"You liked it." he whispers, still half-drunk, swaying on the bed in nothing but a wife beater and his unzipped Levi's. "Come on, Fabray, you _liked_ it."

And she scoffs at his smugness and slams the bedroom door shut behind her (the music's pumping too loud for her to get caught), because he's not at all wrong.

.

She really likes Sam; he's nice and holds the car door open for her, and makes sure to keep his hands high enough away from her butt. He's kind, a gentleman, and treats her like a royal lady and, honestly, he's quite too good to be true.

But she realizes all too quickly that's not what she wants. She wants someone to challenge her, to grab her hips and press against them even when she squeals. She wants to sit in the back of a pickup and watch the stars dance around the full moon, with wine coolers cold against her spine and calloused hands warm on her thighs. She wants someone she has a history with, someone with chinks in his armor, not a shiny new mint-condition Ken doll.

(_shewantspuckshh!_)

.

There's a lot of things about Puck Quinn wishes would change:

The overbearing stench of his cologne; the way clouds hide the color of his eyes when he's drunk; how heavy and hot his breath was on her skin that night, and how it reeked of Marlboro smoke and gin; how scratchy his stubble is; how stubborn he is; his girl-hopping; how he never can contain himself from shoving somebody into a locker or a dumpster or a toilet; how he never seems to make the effort to care.

And when she counts them all up and stares at the list in front of her, she wonders how they ever could've been in love.

.

(But there are a lot of good things about Puck Quinn makes a point to remember:

How handsome he looks in dark green; how thick his eyebrows get when pressed together in confusion; how much he likes blue; how much he hates dark green; his smile, when it's genuine, two rows of sparkly teeth; the scar on his left cheek, how it curves downward in place of a dimple when he smirks; the way he tasted like black licorice when he whispered "I love you" on her lips [_it couldn't have just been her lip gloss_]; how soft his hair is, and the way he would groan and face-palm himself when she told him to grow it out; how he can't keep himself from caring about her, but is an expert at not showing it.

And she pushes this list far back in her mind, but it makes her grin when it reminds her how they could've been in love.)

.

The second time he's drunk and she's not, but the back of his trunk looks so welcoming, and Finn's on the verge of breaking up with her, and she's never been that good at pressure. He tastes the same, like black licorice and gin, and she can't remember if she liked that or not - but she does know she likes the warm feeling of his body and the soft feathers of hair atop his head running through her fingers and how fricking _wrong_ this is but the fact she does it anyway.

But what she really likes is the afterwards, when he's sobered up and her head is resting in the crook of his neck, his fingers tracing his name on her pelvis as they lie amongst the rust and the spilt whiskey and the memories – because it's serene and it's quiet, and she feels like maybe, if she stayed here long enough, she'd just disintegrate into his arms and there'd be no more of her to destroy and be destroyed. (It's not that easy.)

"Well…" he sighs, still holding onto her, his eyes trained on his weatherworn combat boot. "Never thought we'd do that again."

_Never thought we'd do in the first place_, she thinks. Quinn doesn't respond, except to clutch his T-shirt a little tighter and breathe in his unbearable scent a little longer. He continues tracing his name, but he also traces hers now.

.

"You have a date to prom." It's not a question but a statement, and he's right about it – she does have a date, even if it's not the date she thinks she might want to have.

"And you don't?" Hers is a question, and he just shrugs as he tugs a grease-stained T-shirt from the floor over his head. The air in his bedroom smells musty and dank, and she's never felt so claustrophobic as she does here with the _Playboy_ magazines under the mattress and band posters on the walls. She prefers his truck, because while it may not be quite as sanitary, it's more open and free and maybe even a wee bit _special_.

"Depends." he says, collapsing back onto the bed as she pulls the sheets closer up to her chin. His eyes penetrate hers, and she can see herself in his eyes, hair flyaway and bra strap sliding down her shoulder. She wonders if, when he looks into her eyes, he sees himself – but no, all he'd probably be able to see is Finn, because she belongs with him more than Puck.

"I'm going with Finn." she says; she tries to stay strong, but it's a whisper. He nods begrudgingly, and looking into his eyes Quinn sees fire instead of her face, and when she jerks back to look at the rest of him, his fists are shaking and clenched.

"Yeah," is what he says before telling her she better go.

She doesn't risk hanging around.

.

All she feels on her skin is dirt and sin when Finn smiles at her from the bottom of the staircase. She doesn't think it's fair at all to be called _beautiful_ by him and kissed by him when in her bedroom upstairs, barely a day ago, his best friend was lying on her yellow bedspread and strumming his guitar, for _her_, and she wasn't even thinking about Finn. (She can't think of Finn at all, unless Puck brings it up, when she's in Puck's embrace, and that's not fair either because when she's with Finn his name is branded on the back of her eyelids.)

Puck is there onstage, and Sam and Artie too. But, really, she's not focusing on either of them, even when she tries, because Puck is dancing around and singing (_and at times she catches him looking directly at her_). When she peals her eyes off of him, though, Finn's are glued angrily on Rachel and Jesse on the dance floor, and it makes her fricking hate Rachel – well, truthfully hate _everyone_, because it's supposed to be Quinn&Finn because that's adorably saccharine, and Puck with a different girl every night, and Rachel, well, doing whatever Rachels do – but _no_, it's messy and complicated and _un_-_fricking-fair_.

And sure enough she can't even pretend it's not messy or complicated, because Finn has to play Rachel's hero and Coach Sylvester has to kick Finn and Jesse out, and Quinn has to be gazing at Puck the entire night.

.

There's a note shoved in the back of her dresser drawer, dog-eared at the edges and smudgy and unreadable.

She finds it, tears it into tinytiny pieces, and cries.

.

The next summer doesn't start with a promise, but a demand.

She's standing in his driveway and he's leaning against his truck with grease and sweat stains on his shirt and face. She's in a blue sundress.

"Don't come near me." She doesn't look at him when she says this, and her fingers are clenched tightly.

"I don't want to anymore," he hisses after awhile, "It's not worth it."

She stares after him, emotionless, as he turns his attention back to the car, before walking back down the sidewalk to her house a few blocks down. She doesn't look back at him, because if she does she thinks her heart will shatter and she can't have that happen again.

If she looked back, she may've seen him looking, because his heart's already shattered, singed, and cracked, but she'll forever be breaking it.

.

There's a note in the mailbox when she goes out to get the mail. It's crinkled and there are holes poked through by fast, mad writing - she doesn't know whether to open it or not.

In the end she does.

_We could have been forever_.

She thinks of a little face, wrapped in swaddling pink clothes, of wine coolers, of the back of a truck, of blue prom dresses and dark-green T-shirts.

It hurts more than the _I loved you_.

**a/n: meh. not so good at the quinn/puck. but i do like 'em.**


End file.
